A Dark Magician
by Emily1982
Summary: Sometimes help comes from the most unexpected places... and sometimes, it has unexpected consequences.


Title: A Dark Magician

Author: Em

Thanks to ladymorgana for the beta read.

A/N: Apologies if the numbers annoy you – I've yet to find a way to mark section breaks on here. If you know of one, let me know and I'll love you forever!

A Dark Magician

1.

'I'm never listening to you again when you say that nothing can possibly go wrong.' Gawain's face was pale and he was leaning heavily on Lancelot, but that didn't dampen his mocking tone.

Lancelot rolled his eyes and kept moving. It looked like rain, and there was no chance of them making it back to the Wall before dark, so they needed to find shelter quickly. Plus, if Gawain fainted, he was fairly sure he couldn't carry the other man. 'How was I to know you'd be stupid enough to fall off your horse?' he muttered back.

'You can't blame me for that.' Lancelot was quite prepared to try, but Gawain continued. 'I told you my horse wasn't ready to go out, you said we'd be fine because nothing could go wrong.'

And how deeply he was regretting it now. How one simple message run to another fort – which wasn't even their job, but they were having a quiet week and Arthur had been desperate – could have gone quite so wrong, he wasn't sure, but it had and now Gawain's horse was dead at the bottom of a ditch, Gawain himself had an almost certainly broken leg and a severely bleeding wound in his side, and Lancelot's horse had run of to who knew where and wasn't all that likely to come back.

And it was definitely going to rain on them, and quite soon.

'Your inability to choose horses that won't be spooked by one or two dead bodies is nothing to do with me.'

'I told you he wasn't ready.' Gawain leant a little more heavily on Lancelot, leading the other knight to wonder if he was repeating himself to make a point or because he was getting worse.

'Some knight you are.' Lancelot rolled his eyes again, even though he knew Gawain couldn't see, and spotted something on the edge of his vision.

'You're one to talk,' Gawain retorted.

It was more than something. It was a cave, partly concealed by a low-hanging tree branch. 'I'd be nicer if I was you, since I'm the one who's just found us somewhere to shelter for the night, and I could as easily leave you out here to be found by the Woads.'

'Arthur would never forgive you,' Gawain said, but he did stop complaining. Lancelot thought that might have more to do with being lowered to the cave floor, which couldn't be fun with a broken leg, but the end result was the same.

He rocked back on his heels, observing his friend. Gawain's face had gone noticeably paler, and his wound was bleeding again, staining his tunic even more. He looked halfway to passing out, which probably wasn't a bad thing, though he seemed to be forcing himself to stay awake.

As much as Lancelot hated to admit it, even to himself, they really needed Tristan, who, as well as being the best they had when it came to field medicine, could also probably have found them a route back to the Wall so that they wouldn't have had to spend the night in what was, when all was said and done, not a particularly pleasant cave.

Still, they'd survived worse, and if eight years in service to Rome had taught him anything, it was how to dress wounds when there wasn't a surgeon to hand. 'Lie still,' he said, and set about removing Gawain's armour and tunic.

The wound wasn't long, but it was deep, and clearly suffering from them not having had the time to stop and dress it after Gawain had fallen, being driven on by the threat of Woads. It looked reasonably clean, though, so Lancelot did his best at dressing it with the bandages Arthur always forced on them.

By the time he'd finished, Gawain was mostly unconscious, but he shifted anyway. 'What now?'

Lancelot wrapped Gawain's cloak a little more tightly round his friend, since his tunic was basically ruined and even spring evenings in Britain tended to be cold. They weren't exactly prepared for an overnight stay in a cave – little food, less water, no warm clothing – but at least those were mostly rectifiable.

'I'm going to find branches, start a fire. And water, hopefully.' Gawain nodded slightly, and Lancelot's worry went up another notch. 'Try to stay awake till I get back. I don't think anyone will find us, but I've had enough unexpected dead bodies for one day.'

'Mm.' Gawain made a dismissive hand gesture, his eyes still closed.

'Gawain?'

'Mm, heard you.'

It was hardly encouraging, but it was likely the best Lancelot would get, and the sooner he went, the sooner he'd be back.

Branches weren't hard to find, unsurprisingly, given their current position on the edge of the wrong side of the wood near the Wall, and Lancelot soon had a good armful.

He was already making his way back to Gawain, thinking to take one of the flasks they'd emptied during the day back to the stream, when the weather decided he'd been having too much of a good day and it started raining.

As with most British rainstorms, it started without warning, and heavily, and Lancelot was dripping before he'd had time to really notice it starting. He glared up at the clouds for a moment, muttering, 'Thanks so much for that,' and made rapidly for the cave.

Not that it did him any good, since the firewood was nearly as wet as he was by the time he got there, so they'd have a smoke filled cave on top of everything else.

He ducked back out and filled two flasks with rain water, since one lot was as good as another, then knelt next to Gawain, who, despite his earlier words, had his eyes closed.

'Gawain?' Lancelot shook the other knight lightly. 'Wake up.'

''M awake,' Gawain muttered, and his eyes flickered open, half-focussing on Lancelot. 'You're wet,' he added dimly.

'That's what happens when you get caught in torrential rain,' Lancelot agreed. 'Here, drink some of this.' He helped Gawain sit up a little, and held the flask out.

'What is it?' Gawain asked suspiciously.

'Torrential rain,' Lancelot said, and then, at Gawain's confused expression, added, 'Water.' Apparently satisfied, Gawain swallowed several gulps, then leant against Lancelot, shivering.

'I think the bleeding might have stopped.' Lancelot felt down his friend's side, checking the bandages. He wasn't all that sure, but it was at least a comforting thought until he could make sure. 'How are you feeling?'

It was a fairly stupid question, and the lack of a sarcastic response from Gawain actually served as a good indicator of how he felt. 'Tired. Cold. Like I fell off my horse and got dragged however far by someone who's not as careful of other people's broken legs as he could be.'

All right, delay in the sarcastic response, Lancelot amended. 'Stop complaining. I could have just left you there.'

'Should've done,' Gawain muttered. He shifted again, settling a little more against Lancelot, who apparently made a better pillow than the cave floor.

'What, and explain to Arthur that I let the Woads take one of his knights? I'd rather drag you back to the Wall in the snow.'

'Is it snowing?'

'No, Gawain, just raining,' Lancelot said in a tone of infinite patience. It was like having the latest contingent of knights back again, with their stupid questions, though he supposed Gawain at least had the excuse of excessive blood loss.

'S'cold.'

'Lie down again, I'll get the fire going.' He lowered Gawain to the ground as gently as he could, and, after a moment's thought, wrapped his own cloak over his friend as well.

2.

It took a while, and it filled the cave with smoke, but it was a fire. It wasn't quite the same as the campfires they had when all the knights rode out together, but at least it was warm.

'D'you think they're looking for us?' Gawain asked, as though he'd plucked the thought from Lancelot's mind. Despite the fire, his shaking had got worse, and Lancelot was no longer convinced that his wound had stopped bleeding.

'I doubt it. Tomorrow, maybe, but we'll be back by then.' Though how they were going to get back with no horses, Lancelot had yet to figure out. 'You should sleep.'

''M not tired,' Gawain said, though his eyes had slipped closed again. 'S'cold in here.'

'I know.' Lancelot moved over to him, laying his hand against the other knight's forehead. It felt warm. 'That's Britain for you.'

'Is it snowing?'

'No, just raining. Go to sleep.' He ran his hand across Gawain's tangled hair a couple of times, and down his arm, feeling him still trembling. He hoped the wound hadn't got infected – however much practice he'd had at field medicine, infections and fevers were far beyond him to deal with. 'Go to sleep, and we'll go home in the morning.'

'S'cold,' Gawain said again, but his eyes stayed closed, and his breathing evened out into sleep.

3.

Lancelot jerked awake, completely disoriented, unsure of where he was, how long he'd been sleeping or even what had woken him. Gawain's fever had been steadily worsening all night, deteriorating into strange dreams that woke both of them with his muttering, but Gawain was barely twitching in his sleep now.

Lancelot shifted – he must have been sleeping for more than a few minutes, as every muscle ached – and there was something in the mouth of the cave. He was wide-awake in a moment, sleepiness gone, reaching for his swords. Apparently even half-hidden caves weren't safe.

The figure in the cave mouth moved, and Lancelot fought the urge to groan. He'd know that staff anywhere.

'Put up your sword. I do not come to fight you.'

'No, lots of people call on us here in the middle of the night and a rainstorm,' Lancelot called back, neither drawing nor releasing his swords.

'Your friend is hurt,' the voice returned. 'He will not last the night.'

Lancelot glanced down at Gawain automatically, and then snapped his gaze back to the figure in the cave mouth, cursing himself for letting him out of his sight. He was still standing there, unmoving. 'He looks fine to me.'

'He has a fever, he is too weak to fight it. He will not wake.'

'How do you know?' Lancelot's suspicion belatedly caught up with his surprise, and he half rose. 'Why are you here?'

It was too dark, but Lancelot was sure he saw Merlin smile slightly. 'My quarrel is with Rome and not with you. Your Commander would not wish either of you dead.'

Well, that neither made sense nor answered the question, though Lancelot hardly expected either from the famously enigmatic Woad leader. 'Why are you here?' he asked again.

'Rouse your friend.'

Lancelot was already shaking Gawain's shoulder before his brain commented that he had no reason to trust Merlin… except that the man was still standing in the cave entrance and had made no effort to kill them while they slept, which garrison rumour said he could have done. Gawain groaned quietly in his sleep, but gave no appearance of waking. Lancelot shook him again, touching the exposed skin at Gawain's throat as he did. The other knight was cold.

'He will not wake.'

Shaken, and not a little convinced, Lancelot called back, 'Thank you so much for letting me know. Now leave me in peace so I can watch him die.'

This time, the expression that crossed Merlin's face was more like a grimace, and somehow he was closer, though Lancelot hadn't seen him move. His grip on his swords tightened. 'I can heal him.'

'In return for what? Arthur's head delivered to you personally? I don't think so.' Lancelot listened to his own voice carefully, and didn't detect anything like fear. Gawain was a friend, not as close as Arthur, but still a friend, and he'd never imagined hearing himself causally trade one for the other, even if it was only a theoretical trade.

'Arthur's head is only of use to me on his neck,' Merlin said. 'He would want you both returned to him. One day, he will repay this.'

'And I'm supposed to tell him that you saved Gawain and one day he'll owe you, am I?' The confidence was strained this time, Lancelot noted. He didn't like the way Merlin had spoken those words – he'd heard that tone of prophecy once before, when a fortuneteller had passed through his village and spoken to him of a long journey to a strange land, a curse that would become a kind of blessing.

'As you wish,' Merlin said. 'He will know, say what you will.'

He was closer again, close enough for Lancelot to touch, and wasn't this the perfect moment to strike, to take Arthur a really good travel present? But Gawain was…

For a moment, Lancelot closed his eyes. Would Arthur rather have Merlin dead or Gawain alive?

Then he opened them again, resisting the temptation to sigh in defeat. This was Arthur. It wasn't even a question.

'How do I know you won't make it worse?' he asked, well aware that this was his last show of defiance, that he'd already given in and Merlin knew it as well.

In the dim light cast by the embers of the fire, Merlin's eyes gleamed. 'You don't,' he said simply, and bent to lay his hands on Gawain.

4.

Though he watched both men for every second Merlin was in the cave, Lancelot could not say, when he finished, what the Woad had done.

When Merlin rose, hours, minutes later, he was no longer sure, Lancelot surged across the cave, fumbling for Gawain's pulse. It wasn't that he didn't trust Merlin, it was just… no, it was that he didn't trust him, and he'd just put Gawain's life literally in his hands.

It took him a moment, hands made clumsy with tension and fear, but he found it, strong and steady. And Gawain was warmer, neither unnaturally cold nor hot.

Relief shot through Lancelot, and he gasped out a breath.

'His leg is broken. He will need a surgeon to mend it.'

It was hardly dignified, but Lancelot jumped, having forgotten Merlin was there. 'I suppose this is where you strike some kind of bargain?' he asked, trying to regain the upper hand.

Merlin just looked at him, with the same disappointed expression Arthur sometimes used. 'One day, Arthur will have to choose between us, Lancelot of Sarmatia. Do not be too confident in his choice.'

Lancelot knew it was churlish after the man had just saved Gawain's life, but that didn't stop him lunging across the cave at the Woad, sword in his hand before he even thought about it. Merlin, irritatingly, didn't even raise his staff, merely took a step backwards, avoiding Lancelot's wild strike.

'No need for thanks. We will meet again.' And he was gone.

'Lancelot?' Gawain's voice was weak, but his eyes, when Lancelot turned, were wide open for the first time since their arrival in the cave. 'Go to sleep, or at least be quiet.'

Lancelot rolled his eyes. 'Feeling better, are we?'

'I would be if you hadn't woken me up.' Gawain fidgeted for a moment, then moved to sit up. Fearing for split bandages, Lancelot jerked forward to help him, only to be batted away by Gawain's hands and irritated expression.

'I can – ' Gawain stopped, his eyes meeting Lancelot's, full of confusion. 'What happened?'

Lancelot didn't answer, drawing away the bandages he'd so carefully wrapped round Gawain's body earlier, now brown with dried blood. Gawain twisted, trying to see.

In the dawn light, the wound showed as barely more than a scratch, certainly not deep enough to have caused all the blood that soaked the bandages.

'What the – ' Gawain started, and had to stop again as Lancelot pressed his hand to the other man's mouth.

Lancelot turned back to the cave mouth, and after a moment, Gawain heard the same noise. 'Woads?' he asked softly, the words muffled by Lancelot's hand.

Lancelot half-shook his head, frowning in confusion. He knew those footsteps, he was sure he did. It just didn't make any sense for them to be here. 'Stay here,' he muttered, getting a pointed glare at Gawain's broken leg in response.

He inched forward carefully, sword he'd drawn on Merlin still in his hand, and peered through the dripping branches. Then he drew back, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.

He was still looking at Arthur and Tristan, both with identically confused expressions. The chance to see Tristan confused was almost worth the surreal night Lancelot had just had.

Of course, Tristan, master tracker that he was, caught the movement, and turned in their direction and then there was no point in hiding any longer.

Arthur took a lot of reassuring that Gawain really was all right, and even Tristan seemed something close to concerned, so it was a few minutes before Lancelot could ask the question burning in his throat. Because, really, one inexplicable but well-timed appearance was quite enough for one night.

'Bors and Dagonet found Gawain's horse,' Arthur explained. 'There's been rumours of Woads round here… everyone's out searching.' And of course, being Arthur, he had to make sure everything really was all right. 'Why were you hiding in a cave? And whose is the blood?'

Lancelot glanced across at Gawain, who, not unexpectedly, shrugged back, clueless. 'We, er… Gawain fell on something sharp. One of those shallow cuts that bleed a lot.' As explanations went, it was deeply weak, and got a suspicious glance from Tristan, but it seemed to satisfy Arthur, which was all that really mattered.

Arms round Arthur's waist as they rode back to the Wall, Lancelot seemed to hear Merlin's words on the wind. Do not be too confident in his choice.

He tightened his grip on Arthur a fraction. Don't mistake gratitude for debt, then.

It would sound silly if he spoke it aloud, but he knew Merlin heard him.


End file.
